Generally, a silver halide color photographic material has silver halide emulsion layers which are individually sensitive to the three primary colors of red, green and blue. A dye image is produced by a method wherein three types of color couplers in the respective emulsion layers are developed to form colors complementary to the color sensitivity of each layer, i.e., by subtractive color photography. Generally, dye images obtained by processing the silver halide color photographic material comprise an azomethine dye or an indoaniline dye formed by the reaction of the couplers with the oxidant of an aromatic primary amine color developing agent. The thus-formed color photographic images are not always stable upon exposure to light or moist heat. When the dye images are exposed to light or stored under conditions of high temperature and humidity over a long period of time, the dye images become faded or discolored, and the image quality is deteriorated.
The fading or discoloration of the images is a serious problem of prior art recording materials. Accordingly, many techniques have been proposed to solve the problem. For example, couplers which form dyes having high fastness have been developed, anti-fading agents have been employed, and ultraviolet light absorbents have been used to protect the images from deterioration by exposure to ultraviolet light.
Particularly, anti-fading agents remarkably prevent deterioration of the images. For example, it is known that the addition to the photographic material of hydroquinones, hindered phenols, catechols, gallic esters, aminophenols, hindered amines, chromanols, indanes, and ethers or esters obtained by silylating, acylating or alkylating the phenolic hydroxyl group of these compounds, and metal complexes prevents image deterioration.
Although the above noted anti-fading agents are effective as fading or discoloration inhibitors for dye images, these compounds are insufficient for meeting the demand for higher image quality. In addition, these compounds are considered to be poor color photographic additives on the whole. Particularly, addition of these prior art anti-fading agents results in a change in hue, generation of fog, dispersion failure, or the formation of crystallites after coating of the emulsion.
JP-A-61-6652 (the term "JP-A" as used herein means an "unexamined published Japanese patent application") and JP-A-1-137258 propose the use of bisphenol compounds having a specific structure to prevent dye images obtained from yellow couplers from fading or discoloration. Furthermore, JP-A-54-70830 proposes the use of bisphenol compounds having a specific structure and dialkoxybenezene compounds in combination to prevent discoloration.
However, these compounds either do not effectively prevent fading, or cause considerable staining of the white background portions. Accordingly, adequate improvement of the fastness of the dye images is not obtained. Furthermore, some of these compounds cause a change in hue. JP-A-62-262047 discloses the use of bisphenol compounds having improved properties with regard to the solution of these problems; however, the compounds of JP-A-62-262047 still do not sufficiently improve the fastness of the dye images.
Furthermore, JP-A-52-150630, JP-A-53-108428, JP-A-55-6321 and JP-A-61-86750 propose the use of specific aminophenol compounds to prevent the dye images from fading or discoloration.
However, the specific aminophenol compounds do not sufficiently improve the fastness of the dye images. For example, these compounds either do not effectively prevent fading, or cause considerable staining of the white background portions. Furthermore, some of these compounds cause color formation (hereinafter referred to as fogging) in unexposed areas, or interfere with the color formation of the couplers. Namely, some of the aminophenol compounds adversely affect photographic characteristics.
Accordingly, there is a demand to provide a method which prevents the fading or discoloration of images without adversely affecting photographic characteristics.